But also as soon as the four plants that are under construction can come online, if they can stay within their budgets, and if they can come in on time, that's going to send a very strong message that this is a doable undertaking.

That seems to be a big "if" since the track record hasn't been so good in the past.

"It gives them a competitive advantage and it's the right thing to do."

Not a typo, but in the article, the last o and the full-stop in that sentence being bolded is... weird!

Anyway, nice to see she at least acknowledges some of the problmes, but there's a fair bit of talking out both sides of her mouth, like being behind not supporting Kyoto and thinking the US was doing enough through "voluntary programs".

Climate change is only "polarizing" because one half of the electorate (not naming any names) has made it so to further their own agenda. Perhaps, in addition to pursuing nuclear power, mz. Whitman could pressure her compatriots to stop doing that as well.

Climate change is only "polarizing" because one half of the electorate (not naming any names) has made it so to further their own agenda. Perhaps, in addition to pursuing nuclear power, mz. Whitman could pressure her compatriots to stop doing that as well.

Oh, I dunno about the "half" part. More like one-third perhaps?

Some of us from "that political party" actually believe in climate change.

I've been watching a lot of House of Cards recently my god is every one of her replies confusing and disarmingly illusive - Mr Underwood would be proud.

I'm sure most of it's not deliberate either.

Edit: typos and stuff

Eh...seemed pretty clear to me. Her main points, as they seem to me are:

1) Kyoto wasn't going to fly in Bush's Murica, but we could have acted more deferentially about pulling out while pursuing our own program. But we didn't pursue our own carbon program and that made us look bad.

2) Nuclear power is important and necessary to the future energy mix. There are upcoming technologies that should bridge the problems that plants have had up to now.

3) The NRC is not captured by the nuclear industry, and is in fact, a model to be emulated overseas. We should raise international standards by being active overseas, sharing knowledge and demonstrating leadership.

She's not setting up her superiors to fall on their own swords, which is the signature House of Cards move. So I don't get what you're saying at all.

Somehow I had not heard about Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) so the timing of this article is a really a neat coincidence. I was talking with a coworker this morning about Oak Ridge National Laboratory and he brought up how they were currently working on them as part of a push by TVA. Watts Bar new reactor is a 1.1GW unit, and after thinking big though most of their history, they are looking at 180MW units for smaller applications.

Climate change is only "polarizing" because one half of the electorate (not naming any names) has made it so to further their own agenda. Perhaps, in addition to pursuing nuclear power, mz. Whitman could pressure her compatriots to stop doing that as well.

Oh, I dunno about the "half" part. More like one-third perhaps?

Some of us from "that political party" actually believe in climate change.

It's not just that some don't believe, it's that others who do believe, don't think that the US can do anything about it without "destroying the economy." They believe that an economy that's reliant on clean power and low industrial emissions will be too expensive to compete with the rest of the world.

The problem there is that companies are so used to putting down emissions as an externality that they are fighting tooth and nail to keep from having to be accountable for their emissions. Power companies that are reliant on dirty coal are pushing back because they have no fallback plan. They may as well fold.

Climate change is only "polarizing" because one half of the electorate (not naming any names) has made it so to further their own agenda. Perhaps, in addition to pursuing nuclear power, mz. Whitman could pressure her compatriots to stop doing that as well.

Oh, I dunno about the "half" part. More like one-third perhaps?

Some of us from "that political party" actually believe in climate change.

Baloney. The Party of Kommet has a firmly pro-evidence, pro-science, and pro-milkshake platform. We have no truck with deniers.

The milkshake part is not entirely relevant in this instance, but I still feel it bears mentioning.

Climate change is only "polarizing" because one half of the electorate (not naming any names) has made it so to further their own agenda. Perhaps, in addition to pursuing nuclear power, mz. Whitman could pressure her compatriots to stop doing that as well.

Oh, I dunno about the "half" part. More like one-third perhaps?

Some of us from "that political party" actually believe in climate change.

Baloney. The Party of Kommet has a firmly pro-evidence, pro-science, and pro-milkshake platform. We have no truck with deniers.

The milkshake part is not entirely relevant in this instance, but I still feel it bears mentioning.

Climate change is only "polarizing" because one half of the electorate (not naming any names) has made it so to further their own agenda. Perhaps, in addition to pursuing nuclear power, mz. Whitman could pressure her compatriots to stop doing that as well.

Oh, I dunno about the "half" part. More like one-third perhaps?

Some of us from "that political party" actually believe in climate change.

And some of us from "that political party" know a lot of people in "the other political party" who don't believe in climate change. Its not confined to one party.

There is no other solution to this than a carbon tax. In order for a market to work, you need to pay for what you get. Right now, people that use fossil fuels are getting something (waste disposal) for free, while those that use solar and wind are not getting that subsidy.

A carbon tax would put a price on that disposal, and thus the consumer of the difference energy sources could make a market-based choice of which to use. If they used fossil fuels, they would be paying the rest of us for that use, if not, great!

One tweak I would make is to make the "tax" refundable at the end of the year eg:

- tax fossil fuels at site of extraction or production- divide all money collected evenly across all tax payers and make it a tax credit

This would still create the market as intended, but would stop govt from "profiting" from the tax. Basically the average fossil fuel user would be no worse or better off, but they would be rewarded for using less. Market does the rest.

It's great that Ms. Todd Whitman is finally coming out and speaking about the importance of trying to prevent global warming. More Republicans need to come on board with Ms. Todd Whitman.

But it's spineless for Ms. Todd Whitman to wait so many years before finally coming out about her positions on global warming publicly. She probably could not talk openly about this while she was EPA head. But why didn't she say anything right after she left that role? So many times on so many issues, politicians wait years before they finally say what should have been said a long, long time ago. (I'm looking at you Ken Mehlman, the closeted gay RNC chief who helped construct the strategy of anti-gay marriage amendments in the states to get voters to come out and re-elect George W. Bush in 2004. Years later Ken Mehlman came out as a gay man and as a supporter of gay marriage. Spineless.)

Climate change is only "polarizing" because one half of the electorate (not naming any names) has made it so to further their own agenda. Perhaps, in addition to pursuing nuclear power, mz. Whitman could pressure her compatriots to stop doing that as well.

Well, this is a country that hates discussing any difficult topic if it's more than four years out in the future (so the impending waterworld apocalypse doesn't make the talking points for most news coverage). Telling people their two year old might develop asthma from the coal factory down the road is an equally scientific and factual point, but one that's just going to be so much more persuasive.

And if I'm honest, while believing climate change, it's still a difficult enough field of science that we're dealing with probabilities and less than perfect models that require a lot of expertise and credentials to be all that sure about (and even then, my impression is high levels of surety about anything but the general concepts isn't always warranted). Water and air pollution? That's high school biology level science that hurts your kids before the've finished college. That's a good talking point for reigning in pollution for anybody with a family and brain.

Christine Todd Whitman is a Republican who wants to see climate change tackled.

That sounds like the real story to me. How does someone in such a position reconcile the world around them?

Quote:

What we're talking about here is clean air, and if you want to look at a way to ensure that we have cleaner air while at the same time growing our economy, nuclear energy provides a huge economic boost in the states where it's located, in the communities where it's located.

Nuclear energy is only economical for private energy companies who buy up publicly funded plants after the original owner runs out of time and money thanks to the crippling debt burden. During operation the owner only has to purchase a token amount of liability insurance with the rest handled by the American taxpayer. Insurance companies have estimated that an especially severe accident or attack could potentially reach up to one trillion dollars in liability, the vast majority of which would be paid for by taxpayers. Although nuclear power plants pay a lot of money toward future storage of waste it's a finite amount that cannot and will not come close to covering the amount of effort required to keep it safe and protected until it's harmless.

Quote:

While we can and will do better with solar and wind, right now they're still just peak shaving [handling demand at high-use times], and we're a 24-7 society, so they have to have base power behind them. And that base power needs to be as clean as can be, and that's where nuclear comes in—nuclear boxes way above its weight class. Nuclear is only about 19 percent of our energy mix, yet it's 63 percent of our clean energy.

Solar and wind are peak power in the sense that we have not yet implemented power storing methods such as daytime/windy hydrogen generation and industrial scale lithium storage. Those types of energy storage are not cheap, but they're still cheaper than building more nuclear power plants and storing the resulting nuclear waste until it's harmless. For pure 24/7 base load sources geothermal, conventional hydro, oceanic tidal and wave generation, and combined cycle plants employing biomass and natural gas would make a lot more sense. Nuclear power plants enjoy extended fuel life but also suffer from extended maintenance windows that detract from the 24/7 power generation claims.

Quote:

All these things are things that people can understand. Climate change is kind of an esoteric issue, and when you're worried about whether you can stay in your home, whether you're going to be able to pay your mortgage, whether your kids are going to get an education, or that you're safe, talking about climate change is a lot harder to engage.

You could say the same thing about nuclear waste Christine. In the end you're trying to sell us on solving a 50,000 year global warming problem with a 50,000,000 year nuclear waste problem and you don't even have the decency to mention the trade off.

Quote:

Our NRC is very proactive, just on little things. The problem you had in Japan was obviously not the earthquake, it was the tsunami, and that's because they colocated the generators with the reactor. And our Nuclear Regulatory Commission after 9/11 had identified this as a potential problem and required the utilities to have them in separate buildings. So it's constantly looking for new ways to approach safety in the field.

Actually, the NRC is forced to adhere to an inherent conflict of interest by design. As such they are doing their best to streamline approvals and prevent any interference to the industry they are expected to simultaneously support and regulate. Which is the same fundamental flaw that Japan's NRA suffered from.

Quote:

I hope that we will take on a comprehensive energy plan as part of what government recognizes it needs to do. We need to have that in this country, and it ought to be basic clean, green, reliable, affordable, and nothing more, and let the marketplace choose the winners.

Notice how Christine never mentions RENEWABLE or DOMESTIC fuel sources. Nuclear power is not renewable and the richest most practical deposits are located outside of the US.

Climate change is only "polarizing" because one half of the electorate (not naming any names) has made it so to further their own agenda. Perhaps, in addition to pursuing nuclear power, mz. Whitman could pressure her compatriots to stop doing that as well.

Oh, I dunno about the "half" part. More like one-third perhaps?

Some of us from "that political party" actually believe in climate change.

Baloney. The Party of Kommet has a firmly pro-evidence, pro-science, and pro-milkshake platform. We have no truck with deniers.

The milkshake part is not entirely relevant in this instance, but I still feel it bears mentioning.

#Kommet2016Milkshakes, motherfuckers.

I find this a difficult platform to compete against. My Affordable Chinese Food Act pales in comparison to the might of milkshakes.

Climate change is only "polarizing" because one half of the electorate (not naming any names) has made it so to further their own agenda. Perhaps, in addition to pursuing nuclear power, mz. Whitman could pressure her compatriots to stop doing that as well.

Oh, I dunno about the "half" part. More like one-third perhaps?

Some of us from "that political party" actually believe in climate change.

Baloney. The Party of Kommet has a firmly pro-evidence, pro-science, and pro-milkshake platform. We have no truck with deniers.

The milkshake part is not entirely relevant in this instance, but I still feel it bears mentioning.

#Kommet2016Milkshakes, motherfuckers.

I find this a difficult platform to compete against. My Affordable Chinese Food Act pales in comparison to the might of milkshakes.

Our NRC is very proactive, just on little things. The problem you had in Japan was obviously not the earthquake, it was the tsunami, and that's because they colocated the generators with the reactor. And our Nuclear Regulatory Commission after 9/11 had identified this as a potential problem and required the utilities to have them in separate buildings. So it's constantly looking for new ways to approach safety in the field.

Actually, the NRC is forced to adhere to an inherent conflict of interest by design. As such they are doing their best to streamline approvals and prevent any interference with the industry they are expected to simultaneously support and regulate. Which is the same fundamental flaw that Japan's NRA suffered from.

Obviously you've never worked in the nuclear industry. The reason why the US's NQA-1 program is preferred the world over is because of how comprehensive the program is and the emphasis on safety. The amount of hours and research required to follow all the code for NQA-1 and ASME standards like the Boiler Pressure Vessel Code is staggering.

Also, there was another article mentioning nuclear power on this site not too long ago, where a user posted a picture of the entire lifetime waste of a nuclear power plant being contained in several fat concrete pillars. Nuclear waste disposal is only expensive when we have to clean up the mistakes of nuclear engineers from the early 50's and 60's.

"Christine Todd Whitman is a Republican who wants to see climate change tackled."

That sounds like the real story to me. How does someone like that reconcile the world around them?

Quote:

What we're talking about here is clean air, and if you want to look at a way to ensure that we have cleaner air while at the same time growing our economy, nuclear energy provides a huge economic boost in the states where it's located, in the communities where it's located.

Nuclear energy is only economical for private energy companies who buy up publicly funded plants after the original owner runs out of time and money thanks to the crippling debt burden. During operation the owner only has to purchase a token amount of insurance with the rest handled by the American taxpayer. Insurance companies have estimated that an especially severe accident or attack could reach up to one trillion dollars in liability, the vast majority of which would be paid for by taxpayers. When the plant eventually closes the cost of storing all that waste for millions of years will billed to the taxpayers.

Quote:

While we can and will do better with solar and wind, right now they're still just peak shaving [handling demand at high-use times], and we're a 24-7 society, so they have to have base power behind them. And that base power needs to be as clean as can be, and that's where nuclear comes in—nuclear boxes way above its weight class. Nuclear is only about 19 percent of our energy mix, yet it's 63 percent of our clean energy.

Solar and wind are peak power only in the sense that we have not yet implemented power storing methods such as daytime/windy hydrogen generation and industrial scale lithium storage. For pure 24/7 sources geothermal, conventional hydro, oceanic tidal and wave generation, and combined cycle plants employing biomass and natural gas would make a lot more sense. Nuclear power plants enjoy extended fuel life but also suffer from potentially severe maintenance windows that detract from the 24/7 power generation claims.

Quote:

All these things are things that people can understand. Climate change is kind of an esoteric issue, and when you're worried about whether you can stay in your home, whether you're going to be able to pay your mortgage, whether your kids are going to get an education, or that you're safe, talking about climate change is a lot harder to engage.

You could say the same thing about nuclear waste Christine. In the end you're trying to sell us on solving a 50,000 year global warming problem with a 50,000,000 year nuclear waste problem and you don't even have the decency to mention it.

Quote:

Our NRC is very proactive, just on little things. The problem you had in Japan was obviously not the earthquake, it was the tsunami, and that's because they colocated the generators with the reactor. And our Nuclear Regulatory Commission after 9/11 had identified this as a potential problem and required the utilities to have them in separate buildings. So it's constantly looking for new ways to approach safety in the field.

Actually, the NRC is forced to adhere to an inherent conflict of interest by design. As such they are doing their best to streamline approvals and prevent any interference with the industry they are expected to simultaneously support and regulate. Which is the same fundamental flaw that Japan's NRA suffered from.

Quote:

I hope that we will take on a comprehensive energy plan as part of what government recognizes it needs to do. We need to have that in this country, and it ought to be basic clean, green, reliable, affordable, and nothing more, and let the marketplace choose the winners.

Notice how Christine never mentions RENEWABLE or DOMESTIC power. Nuclear power is not renewable and the richest most practical deposits are located outside of the US. I don't doubt that John Timmer is serious about the environment, but his carefully curated discussions of nuclear power sound oddly biased instead of objectively sound.

This is just so much FUD. There was an article just a few days ago where the comment threads discussed, in depth, some of the things you are spreading bullshit about.

Further, a few minutes spent on wikipedia would tell you that you are so horribly mistaken you should be ashamed.

The biggest area where the DOE and private nuclear energy companies are at fault is not aggressively pursuing Thorium molten salt reactor technology as an alternative to uranium/plutonium reactors.

I would have liked to see a couple of questions asked about LFTR technology and how it fits into the nuclear energy discussion, from someone on the other side of the aisle (someone who's firmly entrenched in the LWR industry, and not an academic in favor of LFTR like Sorenson.)

Climate change is only "polarizing" because one half of the electorate (not naming any names) has made it so to further their own agenda. Perhaps, in addition to pursuing nuclear power, mz. Whitman could pressure her compatriots to stop doing that as well.

Oh, I dunno about the "half" part. More like one-third perhaps?

Some of us from "that political party" actually believe in climate change.

Baloney. The Party of Kommet has a firmly pro-evidence, pro-science, and pro-milkshake platform. We have no truck with deniers.

The milkshake part is not entirely relevant in this instance, but I still feel it bears mentioning.

#Kommet2016Milkshakes, motherfuckers.

I find this a difficult platform to compete against. My Affordable Chinese Food Act pales in comparison to the might of milkshakes.

#Asvarduil2016Current-Gen VR sucks, and Chinese needs to cost less.

Yeah, you really should stop wasting your time with that.

You're absolutely right. The ACA could at least be nicknamed 'Obamacare', which rolls off the tongue well, and is catchy. The ACFA being called 'Asvarduilfood'? Not so much. Of course, trying to adapt a gaming handle into anything not gaming related, is an endeavor full of pitfalls.

Climate change is only "polarizing" because one half of the electorate (not naming any names) has made it so to further their own agenda. Perhaps, in addition to pursuing nuclear power, mz. Whitman could pressure her compatriots to stop doing that as well.

Oh, I dunno about the "half" part. More like one-third perhaps?

Some of us from "that political party" actually believe in climate change.

It's funny. My agreement with people is predicted not by how eastward or westward they are on the political compass, but how north or south....and by the altitude they fly at, to mercilessly torture an analogy.

Whitman was the administrator the first time I worked for EPA. Solid leader, in an old-school conservative kind of way.

I resent Christine Todd Whitman. As a (former) NJ resident, her decision to cut income taxes and reduce contributions to public pensions resulted in the fiscal crisis in New Jersey today and why there's a $40 billion shortfall in the NJ pension system.

Whitman is a hypocrite. No one remembers this buffoon's 9/11 "the air quality is safe" and put many lives at risk.She changed the course of the Delaware river in NJ to "accommodate" construction of a minor league stadium and nightclub. She idled a dredging crane for months (over $10K/day cost) and never consulted with DEP or organisations that deal with changes to wildlife species in the locale.Let's not forget that any NJ state employee will stand behind me in that she took funds out of the pension plans and never put them back in. When she left her Governor seat to join GWBush's EPA, it was soon after they realized that she misrepresented her "environmental" knowledge to the GOP and became a former EPA head.During the administration of Gov. Christie Whitman, the staff of the environmental agency was cut 20 percent, and hours were reduced to 35 from 40 a week. The agency’s site remediation program, which is responsible for overseeing cleanups, dropped to 500 employees from 600 in 1996, even as the department’s responsibilities were expanded to include the regulation of solid and hazardous waste. NJ's D.E.P. never recovered.http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Ch ... dd_Whitman

The biggest area where the DOE and private nuclear energy companies are at fault is not aggressively pursuing Thorium molten salt reactor technology as an alternative to uranium/plutonium reactors.

I would have liked to see a couple of questions asked about LFTR technology and how it fits into the nuclear energy discussion, from someone on the other side of the aisle (someone who's firmly entrenched in the LWR industry, and not an academic in favor of LFTR like Sorenson.)

Mothballed technology - Only a few MSRs have actually been built. Those experimental reactors were constructed more than 40 years ago. This leads some technologists[who?] to say that it is difficult to critically assess the concept.

Startup fuel - Unlike mined uranium, mined thorium does not have a fissile isotope. Thorium reactors breed fissile uranium-233 from thorium, but require a small amount of fissile material for initial start up. There is relatively little of this material available. This raises the problem of how to start the reactors in a short time frame. One option is to produce U-233 in today's solid fuelled reactors, then reprocess it out of the solid waste. A LFTR can also be started by other fissile isotopes, enriched uranium or plutonium from reactors or decommissioned bombs. For enriched uranium startup, high enrichment is needed. Decommissioned uranium bombs have enough enrichment, but not enough is available to start many LFTRs. It is difficult to separate plutonium fluoride from lanthanide fission products. One option for a two-fluid reactor is to operate with plutonium or enriched uranium in the fuel salt, breed U-233 in the blanket, and store it instead of returning it to the core. Instead, add plutonium or enriched uranium to continue the chain reaction, similar to today's solid fuel reactors. When enough U-233 is bred, replace the fuel with new fuel, retaining the U-233 for other startups. A similar option exists for a single-fluid reactor operating as a converter. Such a reactor would not reprocess fuel while operating. Instead the reactor would start on plutonium with thorium as the fertile and add plutonium. The plutonium eventually burns out and U-233 is produced in situ. At the end of the reactor fuel life, the spent fuel salt can be reprocessed to recover the bred U-233 to start up new LFTRs.

Salts freezing - Fluoride salt mixtures have melting points ranging from 300 to 600 °C (572 to 1,112 °F). The salts, especially those with beryllium fluoride, are very viscous near their freezing point. This requires careful design and freeze protection in the containment and heat exchangers. Freezing must be prevented in normal operation, during transients, and during extended downtime. The primary loop salt contains the decay heat-generating fission products, which help to maintain the required temperature. For the MSBR, ORNL planned on keeping the entire reactor room (the hot cell) at high temperature. This avoided the need for individual electric heater lines on all piping and provided more even heating of the primary loop components.[18](p311) One "liquid oven" concept developed for molten salt-cooled, solid-fueled reactors employs a separate buffer salt pool containing the entire primary loop.[73] Because of the high heat capacity and considerable density of the buffer salt, the buffer salt prevents fuel salt freezing and participates in the passive decay heat cooling system, provides radiation shielding and reduces deadweight stresses on primary loop components. This design could also be adopted for LFTRs.

Beryllium toxicity - The proposed salt mixture FLiBe, contains large amounts of beryllium, which is toxic to humans. The salt in the primary cooling loops must be isolated from workers and the environment to prevent beryllium poisoning. This is routinely done in industry.[74](pp52–66) Based on this industrial experience, the added cost of beryllium safety is expected to cost only $0.12/MWh.[74](p61) After start up, the fission process in the primary fuel salt produces highly radioactive fission products with a high gamma and neutron radiation field. Effective containment is therefore a primary requirement. It is possible to operate instead using lithium fluoride-thorium fluoride eutectic without beryllium, as the French LFTR design, the "TMSR", has chosen.[75] This comes at the cost of a somewhat higher melting point, but has the additional advantages of simplicity (avoiding BeF 2 in the reprocessing systems), increased solubility for plutonium-trifluoride, reduced tritium production (beryllium produces lithium-6, which in turn produces tritium) and improved heat transfer (BeF 2 increases the viscosity of the salt mixture). Alternative solvents such as the fluorides of sodium, rubidium and zirconium allow lower melting points at a tradeoff in breeding.

Loss of delayed neutrons - In order to be predictably controlled, nuclear reactors rely on delayed neutrons. They require additional slowly-evolving neutrons from fission product decay to continue the chain reaction. Because the delayed neutrons evolve slowly, this makes the reactor very controllable. In a LFTR, the presence of fission products in the heat exchanger and piping means a portion of these delayed neutrons are also lost.[76] They do not participate in the core's critical chain reaction, which in turn means the reactor behaves less gently during changes of flow, power, etc. Approximately up to half of the delayed neutrons can be lost. In practice, it means that the heat exchanger must be compact so that the volume outside the core is as small as possible. The more compact (higher power density) the core is, the more important this issue becomes. Having more fuel outside the core in the heat exchangers also means more of the expensive fissile fuel is needed to start the reactor. This makes a fairly compact heat exchanger an important design requirement for a LFTR.

Waste management - About 83% of the radioactive waste has a half-life in hours or days, with the remaining 17% requiring 300 year storage in geologically stable confinement to reach background levels.[65] Because some of the fission products, in their fluoride form, are highly water-soluble, fluorides are less suited to long-term storage. For example, cesium fluoride has a very high solubility in water. For long term storage, conversion to an insoluble form such as a glass, could be desirable.[citation needed]Uncertain decommissioning costs - Cleanup of the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment was about $130 million, for a small 8 MW(th) unit. Much of the high cost was caused by the unexpected evolution of fluorine and uranium hexafluoride from cold fuel salt in storage that ORNL did not defuel and store correctly, but this has now been taken into consideration in MSR design.[77] In addition, decommissioning costs don't scale strongly with plant size based on previous experience,[78] and costs are incurred at the end of plant life, so a small per kilowatthour fee is sufficient. For example, a GWe reactor plant produces over 300 billion kWh of electricity over a 40-year lifetime, so a $0.001/kWh decommissioning fee delivers $300 million plus interest at the end of the plant lifetime.Noble metal buildup - Some radioactive fission products, such as noble metals, deposit on pipes. Novel equipment, such as nickel-wool sponge cartridges, must be developed to filter and trap the noble metals to prevent build up.

Limited graphite lifetime - Compact designs have a limited lifetime for the graphite moderator and fuel / breeding loop separator. Under the influence of fast neutrons, the graphite first shrinks, then expands indefinitely until it becomes very weak and can crack, creating mechanical problems and causing the graphite to absorb enough fission products to poison the reaction.[79] The 1960 two-fluid design had an estimated graphite replacement period of four years.[2](p3) Eliminating graphite from sealed piping was a major incentive to switch to a single-fluid design.[18](p3) Replacing this large central part requires remotely operated equipment. MSR designs have to arrange for this replacement. In a molten salt reactor, virtually all of the fuel and fission products can be piped to a holding tank. Only a fraction of one percent of the fission products end up in the graphite, primarily due to fission products slamming into the graphite. This makes the graphite surface radioactive, and without recycling/removal of at least the surface layer, creates a fairly bulky waste stream. Removing the surface layer and recycling the remainder of the graphite would solve this issue.[original research?] Several techniques exist to recycle or dispose of nuclear moderator graphite.[80] Graphite is inert and immobile at low temperatures, so it can be readily stored or buried if required.[80] At least one design used graphite balls (pebbles) floating in salt, which could be removed and inspected continuously without shutting down the reactor.[81] Reducing power density increases graphite lifetime.[82](p10) By comparison, solid-fueled reactors typically replace 1/3 of the fuel elements, including all of the highly radioactive fission products therein, every 12 to 24 months. This is routinely done under a protecting and cooling column layer of water.Graphite-caused positive reactivity feedback - When graphite heats up, it increases U-233 fission, causing an undesirable positive feedback.[44] The LFTR design must avoid certain combinations of graphite and salt and certain core geometries. If this problem is addressed by employing adequate graphite and thus a well-thermalized spectrum, it is difficult to reach break-even breeding.[44] The alternative of using little or no graphite results in a faster neutron spectrum. This requires a large fissile inventory and radiation damage increases.

Limited plutonium solubility - Fluorides of plutonium, americium and curium occur as trifluorides, which means they have three fluorine atoms attached (PuF3, AmF3, CmF3). Such trifluorides have a limited solubility in the FLiBe carrier salt. This complicates startup, especially for a compact design that uses a smaller primary salt inventory. Of course, leaving plutonium carrying wastes out of the startup process is an even better solution, making this a non issue. Solubility can be increased by operating with less or no beryllium fluoride (which has no solubility for trifluorides) or by operating at a higher temperature[citation needed](as with most other liquids, solubility rises with temperature). A thermal spectrum, lower power density core does not have issues with plutonium solubility.

Proliferation risk from reprocessing - Effective reprocessing implies a proliferation risk. LFTRs could be used to handle plutonium from other reactors as well. However, as stated above, plutonium is chemically difficult to separate from thorium and plutonium cannot be used in bombs if diluted in large amounts of thorium. In addition, the plutonium produced by the thorium fuel cycle is mostly Pu-238, which produces high levels of spontaneous neutrons and decay heat that make it impossible to construct a fission bomb with this isotope alone, and extremely difficult to construct one containing even very small percentages of it. The heat production rate of 567 W/kg[83] means that a bomb core of this material would continuously produce several kilowatts of heat. The only cooling route is by conduction through the surrounding high explosive layers, which are poor conductors. This creates unmanageably high temperatures that would destroy the assembly. The spontaneous fission rate of 1204 kBq/g[83] is over twice that of Pu-240. Even very small percentages of this isotope would reduce bomb yield drastically by "predetonation" due to neutrons from spontaneous fission starting the chain reaction causing a "fizzle" rather than an explosion. Reprocessing itself involves automated handling in a fully closed and contained hot cell, which complicates diversion. Compared to today's extraction methods such as PUREX, the pyroprocesses are inaccessible and produce impure fissile materials, often with large amounts of fission product contamination. While not a problem for an automated system, it poses severe difficulties for would-be proliferators.

Proliferation risk from protactinium separation - Compact designs can breed only using rapid separation of protactinium, a proliferation risk, since this potentially gives access to high purity 233-U. This is difficult as the 233-U from these reactors will be contaminated with 232-U, a high gamma radiation emitter, requiring a protective hot enrichment facility[65] as a possible path to weapons-grade material. Because of this, commercial power reactors may have to be designed without separation. In practice, this means either not breeding, or operating at a lower power density. A two-fluid design might operate with a bigger blanket and keep the high power density core (which has no thorium and therefore no protactinium).[citation needed] However, a group of nuclear engineers argues in Nature (2012) that the protactinium pathway is feasible and that thorium is thus "not as benign as has been suggested . . ." [84]Proliferation of neptunium-237 - In designs utilizing a fluorinator, Np-237 appears with uranium as gaseous hexafluoride and can be easily separated using solid fluoride pellet absorption beds. No one has produced such a bomb, but Np-237's considerable fast fission cross section and low critical mass imply the possibility.[85] When the Np-237 is kept in the reactor, it transmutes to short lived Pu-238. All reactors produce considerable neptunium, which is always present in high (mono)isotopic quality, and is easily extracted chemically.

Neutron poisoning and tritium production from lithium-6 - Lithium-6 is a strong neutron poison; using LiF with natural lithium, with its 7.5% lithium-6 content, prevents reactors from starting. The high neutron density in the core rapidly transmutes lithium-6 to tritium, losing neutrons that are required to sustain break-even breeding. Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, which is nearly identical, chemically, to ordinary hydrogen.[86] In the MSR the tritium is quite mobile because, in its elemental form, it rapidly diffuses through metals at high temperature. If the lithium is isotopically enriched in lithium-7, and the isotopic separation level is high enough (99.995% lithium-7), the amount of tritium produced is only a few hundred grams per year for a 1 GWe reactor. This much smaller amount of tritium comes mostly from the lithium-7 - tritium reaction and from beryllium, which can produce tritium indirectly by first transmuting to tritium-producing lithium-6. LFTR designs that use a lithium salt, choose the lithium-7 isotope. In the MSRE, lithium-6 was successfully removed from the fuel salt via isotopic enrichment. Since lithium-7 is at least 16% heavier than lithium-6, and is the most common isotope, lithium-6 is comparatively easy and inexpensive to extract. Vacuum distillation of lithium achieves efficiencies of up to 8% per stage and requires only heating in a vacuum chamber.[87] However, about one fission in 90,000 produces helium-6, which quickly decays to lithium-6 and one fission in 12,500 produces an atom of tritium directly (in all reactor types). Practical MSRs operate under a blanket of dry inert gas, usually helium. LFTRs offer a good chance to recover the tritium, since it is not highly diluted in water as in CANDU reactors. Various methods exist to trap tritium, such as hydriding it to titanium,[88] oxidizing it to less mobile (but still volatile) forms such as sodium fluoroborate or molten nitrate salt, or trapping it in the turbine power cycle gas and offgasing it using copper oxide pellets.[89](p41) ORNL developed a secondary loop coolant system that would chemically trap residual tritium so that it could be removed from the secondary coolant rather than diffusing into the turbine power cycle. ORNL calculated that this would reduce Tritium emissions to acceptable levels.

Corrosion from tellurium - The reactor makes small amounts of tellurium as a fission product. In the MSRE, this caused small amounts of corrosion at the grain boundaries of the special nickel alloy, Hastelloy-N. Metallurgical studies showed that adding 1 to 2% niobium to the Hastelloy-N alloy improves resistance to corrosion by tellurium.[56](pp81–87) Maintaining the ratio of UF4/UF 3 to less than 60 reduced corrosion by keeping the fuel salt slightly reducing. The MSRE continually contacted the flowing fuel salt with a beryllium metal rod submerged in a cage inside the pump bowl. This caused a fluorine shortage in the salt, reducing tellurium to a less aggressive (elemental) form. This method is also effective in reducing corrosion in general, because the fission process produces more fluorine atoms that would otherwise attack the structural metals.

Radiation damage to nickel alloys - The standard Hastelloy N alloy was found to be embrittled by neutron radiation. Neutrons reacted with nickel to form helium. This helium gas concentrated at specific points inside the alloy, where it increased stresses. ORNL addressed this problem by adding 1–2% titanium or niobium to the Hastelloy N. This changed the alloy's internal structure so that the helium would be finely distributed. This relieved the stress and allowed the alloy to withstand considerable neutron flux. However the maximum temperature is limited to about 650 °C.[91] Developement of other alloys may be required.[92] The outer vessel wall that contains the salt can have neutronic shielding, such as boron carbide, to effectively protect it from neutron damage.

Long term fuel salt storage - If the fluoride fuel salts are stored in solid form over many decades, radiation can cause the release of corrosive fluorine gas and uranium hexafluoride.[94] The salts must be defueled and wastes removed before extended shutdowns and stored above 100 degrees Celsius.[77] Fluorides are less suitable for long term storage because some have high water solubility unless vitrified in insoluble borosilicate glass.

Business model - Today's solid fuelled reactor vendors make long term revenues by fuel fabrication.[dubious – discuss] Without any fuel to fabricate and sell, a LFTR would adopt a different business model. There would be significant barrier to entry costs to make this a viable business. Existing infrastructure and parts suppliers are geared towards water-cooled reactors. There is little thorium market and thorium mining, so considerable infrastructure that would be required does not yet exist. Regulatory agencies have less experience regulating thorium reactors, creating potentials for extended delays.

Development of the power cycle - Developing a large helium or supercritical carbon dioxide turbine is needed for highest efficiency. These gas cycles offer numerous potential advantages for use with molten salt-fueled or molten salt-cooled reactors.[96] These closed gas cycles face design challenges and engineering upscaling work for a commercial turbine-generator set.[97] A standard supercritical steam turbine could be used at a small penalty in efficiency (the net efficiency of the MSBR was designed to be approximately 44%, using an old 1970s steam turbine).[98] A molten salt to steam generator would still have to be developed. Currently, molten nitrate salt steam generators are used in concentrated solar thermal power plants such as Andasol in Spain. Such a generator could be used for an MSR as a third circulating loop, where it would also trap any tritium that diffuses through the primary and secondary heat exchanger.

Yes, there are some advantages to LFTR but as seen by the wiki article, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.

There is no other solution to this than a carbon tax. In order for a market to work, you need to pay for what you get. Right now, people that use fossil fuels are getting something (waste disposal) for free, while those that use solar and wind are not getting that subsidy.

A carbon tax would put a price on that disposal, and thus the consumer of the difference energy sources could make a market-based choice of which to use. If they used fossil fuels, they would be paying the rest of us for that use, if not, great!

One tweak I would make is to make the "tax" refundable at the end of the year eg:

- tax fossil fuels at site of extraction or production- divide all money collected evenly across all tax payers and make it a tax credit

This would still create the market as intended, but would stop govt from "profiting" from the tax. Basically the average fossil fuel user would be no worse or better off, but they would be rewarded for using less. Market does the rest.

FUCKING FIXED. YOU'RE WELCOME WORLD.

In what way is solar and wind paying for the environmental damage caused by its production? Most of our industry doesn't. Western world "cleaned" up its industry by moving it to other countries. The environmental damage is still there just that we don't see it as we are too busy circlejerking about how environmentally enlightened we all are.

Notice how Christine never mentions RENEWABLE or DOMESTIC fuel sources. Nuclear power is not renewable and the richest most practical deposits are located outside of the US.

Actually, nuclear power is renewable, if you use breeder reactor technology. In fact, done right you get more fuel out then you put in. With breeder reactors, you get significantly less fuel waste (current reactors use only a small fraction of the fuel actually in the fuel rods). Every one of the "depleted" fuel rods currently in storage is fuel for a breeder reactor.

The primary issue we have with nuclear power in the US is the result of an amazingly successful long term FUD campaign by the oil, gas, and coal industries attacking nuclear (and to a lessor extent other renewables, primarily because renewables cannot be used for baseline generation, not matter what their proponents might tell you) via regulations, court cases, and astroturf campaigns. This has cause nuclear power to be far, far more expensive than it would have without a concerted campaign against it.

And lest you think I an looking down on renewables, the power in my house comes from the solar array on the roof. During the day, at least. That baseline thing...

Remember that in the past, of the 104 reactors we've had over time, 95 of them used different technologies. So, for the NRC, in the course of doing the regulatory review, they were learning each one over and over again, and that took time.

I knew they used a bunch of different technologies, but not that many. That would certainly explain why economies of scale never seemed to happen, and why it seems like every single reactor was like starting over.

Notice how Christine never mentions RENEWABLE or DOMESTIC fuel sources. Nuclear power is not renewable and the richest most practical deposits are located outside of the US.

Actually, nuclear power is renewable, if you use breeder reactor technology. In fact, done right you get more fuel out then you put in. With breeder reactors, you get significantly less fuel waste (current reactors use only a small fraction of the fuel actually in the fuel rods). Every one of the "depleted" fuel rods currently in storage is fuel for a breeder reactor.

Yes, I've heard that breeder reactors were the perfect solution for nuclear waste and would soon be expanding to industrial levels any day now. For decades this was the primary response to virtually any concern about waste, but it still hasn't happened. Some folks cite regulations, other site costs, process scalability, or the potential for theft and weaponization. But the bottom line is that dozens of well funded research scale projects have thus far failed to produce a practical industrial scale solution. Not to mention that breeder reactors wouldn't be able to do much about millions of tons of waste beyond the spent fuel sources. So far as I can tell Breeder Reactors are a lot like a "Clean Coal" solution; they look and sound great at the theoretical/research/experimentation levels but as you try to develop an industrial scale solution the practical and economical validity begins to fall apart.

Also, there was another article mentioning nuclear power on this site not too long ago, where a user posted a picture of the entire lifetime waste of a nuclear power plant being contained in several fat concrete pillars. Nuclear waste disposal is only expensive when we have to clean up the mistakes of nuclear engineers from the early 50's and 60's.

Yup. This is 30 years worth of spent fuel from the now decommissioned Connecticut Yankee reactor. The biggest problem with nuclear power is economics. The plants are huge and expensive, delays can mean billions in additional cost. That makes them very risky compared to just burning some more coal or natural gas. Now if we had a carbon tax it would be different but we don't so nuclear is kinda fighting with one hand tied behind its back.

Baloney. The Party of Kommet has a firmly pro-evidence, pro-science, and pro-milkshake platform. We have no truck with deniers.

The milkshake part is not entirely relevant in this instance, but I still feel it bears mentioning.

#Kommet2016Milkshakes, motherfuckers.

?

I dunno. On one hand he correctly thinks it's not a sandwich unless it has bacon. On the other hand, he's kind of a dick.

#Broodwich2016

I'm not a huge fan of Whitman, but in comparison to modern Republicans (and yes, if you're a republican, that shitshow is on your hands for being a partisan douche), I'd sure be happy to see her on the stage in place of Los Cubanos and Drumpf. As an NJ resident, even with her poor choices when she was governor, it all pales in comparison to #GovernorGutBucket.

Whitman was the administrator the first time I worked for EPA. Solid leader, in an old-school conservative kind of way.

I resent Christine Todd Whitman. As a (former) NJ resident, her decision to cut income taxes and reduce contributions to public pensions resulted in the fiscal crisis in New Jersey today and why there's a $40 billion shortfall in the NJ pension system.

As a current life-long NJ resident I strongly agree. She is the primary reason the state is in the financial mess it is today. She started the precedent of borrowing money at high interest rates without voter approval (which is required by the NJ state constitution), as well as raiding all kinds of specialized funds, to balance the state budget.

Also, there was another article mentioning nuclear power on this site not too long ago, where a user posted a picture of the entire lifetime waste of a nuclear power plant being contained in several fat concrete pillars. Nuclear waste disposal is only expensive when we have to clean up the mistakes of nuclear engineers from the early 50's and 60's.

Yup. This is 30 years worth of spent fuel from the now decommissioned Connecticut Yankee reactor. The biggest problem with nuclear power is economics. The plants are huge and expensive, delays can mean billions in additional cost. That makes them very risky compared to just burning some more coal or natural gas. Now if we had a carbon tax it would be different but we don't so nuclear is kinda fighting with one hand tied behind its back.

I wonder which would be larger:

The volume of spent fuel, or

The volume of all the paperwork required to design, build, operate, and decommission that reactor.

Somehow I had not heard about Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) so the timing of this article is a really a neat coincidence. I was talking with a coworker this morning about Oak Ridge National Laboratory and he brought up how they were currently working on them as part of a push by TVA. Watts Bar new reactor is a 1.1GW unit, and after thinking big though most of their history, they are looking at 180MW units for smaller applications.

Essentially the only point of her being here is to talk up this nightmare solution.Unless these "small" nuclear reactors will be in the middle of military bases.

Solar and Wind are at grid parity in 20 US states, in 2 years it will be 50 states.So, no matter what other solution you like solar and wind are the economic choices NOW.Anything else is a bad, more expensive, economic bet.